Lena Marie's Life
by Gevia
Summary: The girl who dated ANgel before he became Angelus. And almost turned Spike. ANd now she's in SUnnydale to find our beloved British Bad Boy. Sequal in the works! R for rape though not very graphic.


Lena

It is with wearisome heart and trying hand that I record the event that so recently I would have thought bizarre and monstrous. I listen to Beethoven's Fur Elsie as I sit, at a petite writing table in a shadowy room. I've promised my self that for posterity's sake I will not leave out any detail. Not even the ones that seem too eccentric for mention. I know of few that will believe my tale and I hesitate only slightly because the populace here considers me one of their most elegant debutantes. I could not bear to lose that respect. However, if anyone is to know the pain I have suffered than it is the ones who choose to believe my parable, and the woes I have endured.

I was born in Galway, Ireland to a family of respectable wealth. My father was a noble in the king's court and a fine piano player. My mother, though she was born a peasant, had caught my father's eye and been approved by his father. In that way, they were married. Five years later, in a mansion overlooking a hill, I was born. The year, as I tell it now, was 1720. My given name was Lena Marie. Though my father's pet name for me was simply Lena. My mother however always called me Lena Marie. 

By the time I was fourteen I was a tall girl, however I was well-built. My thick, auburn hair fell well to my waist and I had clear blue eyes rimmed in the gray of my mothers. My skin, for years hidden from the sun, was of pure peaches and cream. By then I was the jewel (as the local boys said) of Galway. A pet of many of the upper ranking young men, as well as our stable boy and several boys of our own status. A few of the local men, I believe would have courted me had it not been for the age difference.

I often went out to the stable just to flirt with John. He was our stable boy, who was from Scotland and in his own country would have been quite popular. Here however he simply tended my horse, Paulina, and father and mother's horses. Of course I did enjoy riding Paulina so trips out had two advantages. To tell the truth, though I know not if John knew, I went with Liam. He was the king's second in command's son. He had hair of deep brown and gorgeous blue eyes. There will be more about him later.

First you must know that by this time I spoke four languages quite fluently. The first three were French, Italian, and English. Being an upper-middle class family, we did not have the heavy accents of the lower classes. However my chambermaid, Anne, taught me Gaelic. This, I found, I spoke with the same accent she had and this way I could communicate with the local village boys, who on a dark night could be good company. Now don't mistake me. I was not a girl of low morals. I never let any of the boys lay a hand on me other than a light peck on the cheek. I just found them of good company.

Back to my chambermaid, Anne. She was of a lower class family, and her mother was our cook. Anne, whom from now on I will refer to as Annie, was also my best friend. She was also the one responsible for sneaking me in on those hot summer nights when I stayed out too late. My mother was a small woman. She was easily persuaded into most things and was my confidant. She was a fiend more than a mother though I could tell I wasn't her favorite. That right was reserved to my older sister, Regina Alexandra. Whom she called simply Regina. Do you see favoritism already?

I was my father's favorite, and the source of his greatest joy was always me. I say this, not to be conceited or haughty. I say it because I was the daughter that he told me he had waited for. I was not a tomboy, but the ideal girl. Prissy and proper, though he knew not of my late night rendevous with John. Though I doubt, he would have cared. In all other ways I was the perfect semblance of womanhood. My father, as I mentioned before, was an exceptional piano player. And his favorite thing to play was Beethoven's Fur Elsie. That could be why I listen to it, even now. To remember the man he once was. Not the monster he became. 

When I came home from the all girls school I attended each day, we had a routine set up. As soon as I sat a foot in the door, my ear would be blessed with my fathers lilting melody. Then from there I would walk to the living room, where I would find Father playing and mother sitting in a chair crocheting. Soon after I sat down with Father, my sister would come in. She seemed to always run behind me, and to be followed home by a certain boy.

Then we would sit down to a late lunch, and discuss the day we had experienced. Then I would excuse myself, to go to the bakery and then out to the riding stables for my daily ride. My sister would make a joke about riding a horse in the full set of skirts I wore and I would remark that I didn't go around with my bloomers showing. Then I would go off to do my business. After I had stopped by the bakery, which we owned in my name, and had gotten some of the truffles that the baker made for me, I would go back to the stables. 

Once I got to the stables, John and I would enjoy those and sometimes, though I stress only sometimes, we would enjoy a small amount of champagne. Then after a few kisses in the hay stack, I would go ride Paulina. Once, I went to the stables with Liam, forgetting completely my little affair with John. The look on his face was more then I could bear. But, Liam and I had him saddle Paulina and my father's horse, Carpatica. We rode out that day, to a spot on a hill, overlooking the moors. There we had kissed a little and re-saddling our horses, rode back to the barn. I sent Liam back to the house. I told him that I wanted to brush my own horse and that, if he was to make curfew, he had better be getting home. 

I went into the stable, head bowed demurely, ready to apologize for in any way leading him on. To my surprise however, he said no apology was necessary. Ten days later he was hanged for impregnating an upper class woman, who happened to be married and already have three children. She was made to give the baby to another family and live in scorn for the rest of her life. And I lost one of my favorite companions. However Father, as though he sensed my needs, hired a local boy, Richard. I'd met him many times and thought he was quite a boy. Handsome and lively, but still quite sweet.

So in the end I've always had someone to provide the needs I had. I was never too long without a companion, never too long without someone to hold onto. Richard came into my life at the worst time possible. I was on the verge of marrying Liam and gaining a wealth like none I had ever know. But I found that, gradually, Richard replaced Liam in my heart and I began to spend the most time possible with Rich, as I had come to call him.

I think that Liam noticed it but he said not a word. That was just how he was. I guess I thought he just didn't want to pick a fight. Until the night he decided to propose. This is what I remember from that day and night. He walked me home from school. I remember thinking how odd it was for him to do that sort of thing and wondering if he might be breaking up with me. And when we got to my house, he came in. We went into the living room and he tapped Father on the shoulder. Father stopped his playing and looked up at Liam. Then Liam asked my father the suspected question. "Would it be all right if I took Lena out to a restaurant? I thought we might go to the park." "That would be fine, Liam. You two have fun." Father replied, smiling a knowing smile at me.

So off we were to the café. Liam took my arm and we walked in, taking a booth near the door. We ordered, but nothing to fancy. I got a glass of water. Then he began to talk. At first it was about the weather, what I was going to do after I graduated. Simply this and that. Then he began with the talk of marriage. After a few moments he came out with what was on his mind. "Lena, if we got married, would you be faithful to me?" "Why of course, Liam. I'm not a woman of loose character. Do you think I'm a woman of loose character?" I said, and I knew that the hurt was showing through in my voice.

"That's not what I said, dearest. I love you and I would never think that. But John and Richard. They were your companions, were they not?" He said with a slight bit of anger in his voice. "Liam, I'm a virgin. Till the day I marry, I'm a virgin. And yes, I had kissed both of them but nothing more and I never denied anything. Besides do you think I don't know about the local girls you met in secret? For Christ's sake, Liam. Would you be true if I married you?" I almost yelled but kept my voice at a whisper so as not to embarrass us.

"Lena those girls were whores! I hope you are happy now. I've had a whore before, okay. I couldn't make love to you so I paid for my needs." Liam shouted and everyone turned to look at him. I suppose they were looking at me too because I burst out in tears and ran. I ran all the way to the stables and the loving, comforting arms of Richard. He asked not one question, he simply held me and let me cry. Now by this time Liam had notified Annie and she had found me. 

She was respectful and kept her distance. That was until I calmed down and Richard notified me of her presence. "What's wrong, bunny? Are you okay? Liam is in the house and wants to see you." She sighed when I began to cry again, my small frame racked with the sobs. And the strong Richard's protective arms around me. "I don't want to see him, Annie. He's been with whores, with whores! He wouldn't be with me but he'd be with a whore. Do you know what that feels like?" I said, anxiety running through my veins.

"Just come with me, you don't have to see him. We'll go up the service stairs." She soothed, taking my hand and leading me back to the main house. "Annie, will you stay with me tonight? I don't think I could be alone right now." I thought aloud and to my relief she said she would. She then announced something that shocked me greatly. "Lena, bunny, I think you and Richard belong together. Seeing him hold you, the way Jean does me, well it looks like you were meant to be." She then blushed, remembering that I hadn't heard that much about Jean and that I wanted to know it all. She just though it was too personal. 

"Annie, you know father would never approve. He's a hand, not marriage material. I'm not even supposed to look at him as though he's a man. Though quite a man he is." Now it was my turn to blush and her turn to give me a look of shock. "Lena Marie, you haven't slept with him have you?" "No, Annabel Francis, I have not. But he's sweet and kind and beautiful and dashing! Come to think of it, he's everything Liam is not." I said, wanting to let her know every detail. I wanted to tell her about the way he kissed and the roses he kept for me from mothers garden. But we had come to the house and I had changed my mind about her staying the night with me. I was going to give myself to Richard, tonight.

"Annie, I feel better now. You can go on home. I'll be all right." I whispered, knowing that I was seconds away from having the time of my life. At that she left, telling me to avoid Liam at all costs. I wasn't planning on even looking at him so there was no reason for her to tell me that. I went in the house, sneaking my way up to my room so that I could get a few things for my night with Richard. But I was met at the door by Liam, who slammed the door and told me this. "Keep your trap shut or I'll gag you!" 

He pushed me down onto the floor and began tearing off my skirts. I'm still not sure how long it took him to do it, but since I had on many, many layers of clothing it had to be quite some time. Then he ripped off my shirts, leaving me in only my corset and one skirt. He hiked that one up, and leaving me on the floor, pulled off his own pants. I already felt disgusting, like some sort of dirty thing. And now he was going to defile me even worse. Had I chosen this, had I wanted it, it would have been a very different thing. But this time, when he straddled me, kissing and fondling my bosom, I hated it. I wanted to spit in his face. I wanted to just get him off of me.

I felt awful, like somehow I deserved this, but knowing I didn't. And the things he put inside me, more than just his seed. He put hate inside me. For any man that would hurt me, had hurt me. Really it was for every man that had ever been near me, except father and Richard. But, now that I dwell on it, something I've never really done, I realize that I enjoyed it. To some extent anyway. Okay, no I did not. I enjoyed the fact that now he would most likely be put in prison. If anyone believed me that is.

Finally, he got up, dressed and left me quivering on the floor. Bleeding, feeling broken and defeated, I don't know how many times I threw up. I just know that I passed out. The doctor said it was from weakness but I think it was from the memories of what he did to me. Annie, when she couldn't get the door open, (he had locked it and when it was closed again it latched shut.) Went and got my mother. She had the key and they walked into a horrible site.

I lie on the floor, surrounded by blood and other things. And in a pile next to me were my ripped skirts. The one I still wore was saturated with blood and my corset was down around my hips. My mother screamed and passed out but Annie, ever the heroine, went and got Richard. She must have known Father would not have been able to pick me up. As Richard came in I woke up. The first thing I saw was Richard and he was crying. They all thought I was dead. Which, had it been up to me would have been the truth. My love picked me up, paying no mind to the blood that even now flowed freely.

Then Annie called the doctor and took me into my bath chamber. She undressed me and sat me into the tub. I'm still not sure how she endured the site she found when I was undressed and finally free from blood so that she could actually see the damage. I was split neatly and several veins were bursted. My wrists were bruised as were my breasts and some areas on my back. I had cuts everywhere and was in a whole lot of pain. 

By the time Annie had me cleaned up the doctor and Father had arrived. Thank god for my friend. She had been the only one with sense enough to notify a doctor. After the doctor saw to me and had assured everyone that, given enough time to heal, I would survive and that it had been a rape. He had said there was no other possibility. Father came to me and began to ask questions. "Lena, what happened? Whom did this to you?" "It was Liam, Father. Do you still love me? I didn't mean to be so bad." I whimpered, through my swollen jaws. "Oh Lena, it wasn't your fault. You weren't bad. Are you sure it was Liam? And not Richard?" He said, his anger glowing in his eyes. "I'm positive, Father. It was Liam. Richard would never do anything like that to me." I whimpered and then fell back to seep.

I slept off and on for a week or so. When I woke up, Annie was by my bedside and had news from Richard. "Bunny, Richard asked your Father if he could see you. Your father said yes but you were asleep. So Rich left this with me. He said to give it to you when you woke up." Out of her pocket she produced a golden ring with a single diamond in it. "He said to tell you that he loved you and as soon as you were better he wanted to begin seeing you properly. And last week, Liam was thrown in the local jail. The local police are waiting for you to say wether or not you want him hung. Are you ready to choose?"

"Of course I am. I want him hung from the tallest tree. I want him put down and shot like a dog. No even that's to good for him. First I want to see Richard. Will you go get him for me?" I expressed. And she smiled down at me. "But of course. He's waiting in the hall." She went out and sent him in. Alone. It was just Richard and I. He sat on the edge of my bed and kissed me, hard. I wanted to give him all the kisses I had but I was still I too much pain. 

"Richard, I love you. Thank you for the ring, and it's gorgeous." I said, clinging to him because I didn't want him to ever leave me again. Or maybe it was simply because I could not yet sit up on my own. "I love you, too. Darling, I've been thinking and I want to marry you. But I'm just the stable hand and your family is so wealthy. Would your father allow it?" He said, clasping me as tightly as I clasped him. "I think Father would allow me to marry anyone I wanted as long as they were kind to me. And have you forgotten about my dowery? I get a sum of my father's property, like a widow does, when I marry. My part includes Anne, her mother, and the bakery. I think there's also a sum of money and some land he holds in Scotland. So we would be well set." 

He then went on to say something about how he wasn't worried about money, just about whether or not Father would allow us to marry. Finally, after hours of debating, he went into the living room to tell my parents that I was awake and to ask for my hand in marriage as he put it. On this date I was officially fifteen years old. 

My father, ever the gentleman, said that Richard and I could get married but we must wait until a year after I had finished my schooling. If we still loved each other, he stated, then he would give us his blessing. I would finish my schooling in three years and I would then be almost eighteen years old. However, little did any of us know that we would not be alive in three years. 

A few months later, in the fall of 1735, something awful happened. I had been at the school all day long and had arrived home at about three that evening. I walked in the door but instead of being greeted with the piano playing a wonderful tune, I was greeted with the wails of my mother and the cries of my sister who had graduated earlier that year. I went into the living room, expecting to here that someone, some distant Scottish relative whom I had never met had passed away. Though come to think of it, there would have been no reason for my sister to be crying because the family had moved to Galway long before either of us was born.

I sat down on the arm of my mother's chair and then I realized that Father was not there. "Mother, where is Father? He should be home by now?" I asked, knowing that Father had been on a trip to London for a week and was supposed to be back by now. "Dear, he was killed last night on his way home to us. They are sending the body back here so that we can give him a proper burial." My mother replied, her voice unsteady with the force of tears that ran through her body.

I took no time to listen to anything else they had to say. I ran off to the barn, and once again, the loving arms of my fiancee Richard. He held me and told me that he knew what it was like. He was an orphan and that once we were married we would always have each other. This would, to anyone else, seem like an odd time to enjoy one another. But I truly enjoyed having him in my arms and I feel he enjoyed having me in his. 

Now, if this were the end of the tale, to most it would seem a waste of time to write it down. If I now said that I was sitting in the writing room of my house with Richard then I too would wonder why I even bothered to spend the time writing it down. But that is not what happened. I do not sit in a room with Richard, nor any other man for that matter.

That night, Richard and I feel asleep in each other's arms and we slept the night away in the barn. The next morning I snuck my way back into the house, though everyone was so worried and depressed that no one seemed to notice that I had been gone all night. I went up to my room and locked myself in, and I allowed no one in, not even Annie. She sat at the door and continually begged me to come down and eat but I refused. I was simply to upset to do anything of the like.

A few nights later, I was sitting in my room sobbing my heart out when I heard the music drifting up the stairway that led to my room. My immediate thought was that it had all been a cruel joke and that Father was not dead at all, but lived and breathed downstairs. Not only that but he was playing Fur Elsie once again and was doing it ad though it was a warm afternoon. I was wrong and I would not know until three days later how wrong I was.

I hurried downstairs, to find Father sitting at the piano and I went over to him. He looked up at me and I could see the deadness of his eyes. There was nothing alive about them. However, I allowed myself to embrace him anyhow and when I did, he slipped the sharp fans that had so recently not been there into the soft flesh of my throat. I slipped out into another world and was placed into the stack of bodies which included my mother and my sister. This was how I was sired into the night life.

I awoke a few nights later only to realize that I was the only one allowed to live. My mother and my sister were both dead and my Father and I feasted on the blood of Annie and her mother. Father wanted to kill Richard but I said no. He would be allowed to live as long as he did not hurt us. From Galway my father and I traveled all through Europe. At one stop, in France, I took on a mate, though Father never found one that he enjoyed so he stayed single. 

The men I chose, though handsome he was, well, let's just say he whined too much. So eventually, when Father and I moved onto America, I left him there. The first time we went to America was when it was still a colony. I wanted to stay and watch the blood drenched war but Father said it would be too dangerous, so we went back to England.

Our first stop, of course, was the British Isle. While there, I found me an even better boy. He had whitish blond hair and the most gorgeous blue eyes. Now I'd been alive for almost thirty years by this time, though I still looked like I was about fifteen. And the boy I made, he was only sixteen. Had the nicest ever cheekbones and was simply savage. And I don't mean simply when he killed.

His given name was William and, for lack of a better name, I let him keep it. It suited him, I guess, but it rather reminded me of a man I'd met up with, in England a few years before. I'd almost turned him and would have too if a vampire by the name of Drusilla hadn't claimed him first. Hissed at me the girl did, she said I had no right chasing the darling boy and that Angel had already claimed him for her. Come to think of it, they looked alike. Next time I run into him I'll have to tell him that little story.

So, after William and I had properly suited ourselves for travel, we moved onto Sicily. Which, though we didn't happen to know it at the time, was where the current Slayer resided. Her name was Lucia and she was a beautiful girl, but deadly. So we were on the hunt. Me, William and Father, all chasing after two young women and a young man who must have been siblings. We cornered them in an alley and as I began to seduce the Young man, my boys started to drain the girls. Then along comes the Slayer and kills my boys. She dusts them like they're nothing and, though I run away, she swears on her life that she'll kill me someday.

I can tell you now that she didn't but she did make it miserable. It's been around two hundred and fifty years since I was sired and it's been around two hundred since she killed my father and my mate. I've not had another since and don't plan on getting one any time soon. And that is who I wind up here. 

As to where I' sitting, well I'll let you in on a secret. I'm sitting in the mansion that once belonged to Angel and Drusilla and Spike. And I've tracked Spike here, to Sunnydale California. SO I sit here, lying quietly until I have a chance to see him again. Thing is he's running with the slayer, a prying girl named Buffy, and one that I cannot stand. He says he loves her and can't live without her. What a load of crock. So I go out every night and I hunt, though I'm really careful not to run into her or any of her friends. 

They don't know it but since that Slayer cursed my life, I can only bite demons and other vampires so really I'm on their side. I only hope that I can convince them of that. Thank you for listening to my story but I've got to go. I think I see my lover coming. And I simply must kill him before I go see Spike. Good-bye. 


End file.
